It is known to provide a vehicle with parking sensors associated with a park aid system. The parking sensors detect the presence of an obstacle during a parking manoeuvre and the park aid system informs the driver accordingly.
It is known to provide a vehicle with an electronic power assisted steering system (EPAS). The EPAS uses image data acquired from a video camera and/or obstacle proximity data acquired by parking sensors to calculate a parking trajectory and then generates a set of steering control signals to automatically control the vehicle during a parking manoeuvre.
It is known from GB 2447672 to provide an on-board computing unit to acquire image data from three video cameras fitted respectively to the rear of the vehicle and one on each door mirror to track the position of a trailer-mounted marker to determine the position of the trailer relative to the vehicle. The computing unit can also predict a target trailer route to assist the driver with a trailer reversing or parking manoeuvre.
A target trailer route may depend on certain trailer geometrical parameters, such as trailer length, hitch length, axle number and trailer wheelbase. Typically, the driver manually enters in the on-board computing unit the values of any required trailer geometrical parameters, or he can manually select them from a look-up table. The look-up table, in certain instances, contains a list of different types of trailers and the driver is required to manually identify the trailer type from the list. The information entered by the driver could be inaccurate, or incorrect, and this could result into the calculation of an inaccurate, incorrect or at least not ideal target trailer route. The present invention was conceived in order to address this problem.
It is an object of the present invention to reduce, or eliminate, the risk that an inaccurate, incorrect or at least not ideal target trailer route be calculated on the basis of inaccurate or erroneous information entered by the driver on a vehicle computing system configured to calculate a target trailer route.